David Lindorff made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Saturday while commenting on Washington-led coalition airstrikes in Syria that began earlier this week.

“I do suspect that it’s all an effort to eventually be bombing in Syria where they can switch the target to the Syrian government’s target,” Lindorff said.

The coalition airstrikes have been targeting ISIL positions in northeastern Syria. But on Saturday, the United States launched attacks against the ISIL in the central province of Homs and the town of Minbej, east of Aleppo, Syria’s second city.

Lindorff argued that the switch was also the reason behind the British parliament’s unwillingness to get engaged in the strikes inside Syria. “I think that’s why the British parliament is reluctant to approve Britain’s support in the bombings outside of Iraq. The British have agreed to start bombing Iraq with the US… and not to join in the bombing of Syria.”

He stated that the British also dragged their feet in 2013, when the US was about to attack Syria on the pretext of the “bogus claim” that the government of President Bashar al-Assad had used poisonous gas on militant strongholds in the suburbs of the capital Damascus on August 21.

“They did not want to be dragged into attacking and regime change in Syria,” Lindorff noted.

He went on to say that there is a “clear suspicion” in Britain that the US-led strikes in Syria “is really about having the planes flying there and then eventually shifting the target to Assad.”

The US and its partners began airstrikes against ISIL in Syria on Tuesday morning. Fighter aircraft from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have taken part in the airstrikes in Syria.

US aircraft, along with fighter jets from France and Britain, have been also bombing several areas in Iraq.

The ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently control parts of Syria and Iraq. They have threatened all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, Izadi Kurds and others, as they continue their atrocities in Iraq.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011 with ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently controlling parts of it mostly in the east.

The Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — are reportedly supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

More than 191,000 people have been killed in over three years of fighting in the war-ravaged country, says the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), calling the figure a probable “underestimate of the real total number of people killed.”